


I think we're haunted.

by sammy_in_purgatory



Category: Being Human (UK)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-08 00:21:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammy_in_purgatory/pseuds/sammy_in_purgatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie struggles to be seen by anyone after learning that her fiance was responsible for her death. That is, until Mitchell and George come along. While Mitchell fights a battle of his own, and George struggles to accept his condition, Annie must decide whether or not she is ready to move on to the afterlife. As two become three, Annie is torn between being at peace, and being at home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Beginnings

There had been others, before. The last couple to live in the house were older, more conservative and much, much less entertaining. He wore a black business suit almost all the time, and she wore button up blouses and short black heels, her hair in a tight ponytail and barely a smile ever passed across her face. Annie tried not to interfere after she realized that they could most certainly not see her, but she couldn't remain completely silent; there had been the odd misplaced shoe here, a glass flying from the table and smashing into a thousand pieces there. While Annie may have known they couldn't see her, she couldn't let go of trying to make them. People had seen her before, talked to her even, but now.. nothing. Unfortunately, the couple scared easy, and not two weeks later, they moved out, complaining to the neighbours about odd noises, strange sounds.

She searched for a way to move on, for her door to open. It never came. She thought she'd finally done it, when it came out that Owen had murdered her. She thought by finally knowing the truth, her door would come and she would finally be at peace. But it didn't, and she wasn't. She made lists, of all the other possibilities of unfinished business, unresolved questions, but nothing worked. But she never stopped searching, and she never gave up hope, knowing that one day her time would come. That one day, she would be able to move to the afterlife and find her peace. Not be stuck with another Mr and Mrs Smith type, not be reduced to squatting in a taken residence and living alone. Nobody to see her, nobody to talk to.

And then they moved in. Annie watched them from a top window of the quite frankly horrid pink house. One wore a dark brown jacket and glasses, the other, a black coat over flannel and what appeared to be fingerless gloves. They carried inside not much more than a small tv and a few garbage bags full of what Annie assumed to be clothes and neccessities. She stood beside the doorway, smiling, as they walked inside for the very first time. Neither of them looked at her twice.

* * *

 

"You want t' watch the real hustle tonight?" Mitchell asked, flipping open the pizza box and taking a slice. He handed it to George.

"I thought it was on Thursdays," George replied, taking a slice for himself and tossing the box onto the table.

"It is Thursday," Mitchell replied, flicking through channels with the remote, lounging back into the chair. 

"No, today's Wednesday."

"I'm pretty sure it's Thursday, George."

Annie watched them from the sofa where she sat, her feet tucked up under her body. She enjoyed their banter, and every now and then she would make a comment. Quite often she sided with George's sensible side, but every now and then, Mitchell would make a raw point that she couldn't help but nod and voice her agreement with. Of course, they couldn't hear her, or see her. It had been two weeks of Annie following George around the kitchen, watching Mitchell dig through the mess of his room for vinyls or cigarettes. But she liked them. Much better than the last pair. 

She envied them, their ability to be seen, to see eachother. She envied their friendship. They worked together, often sharing shifts and taking turns driving to the hospital. Annie never went along, although sometimes she did stray all the way out onto the street, waving as they drove away. She knew it was crazy, to be waving at them, saying goodbye and smiling as they drove away. But this was different. This wasn't middle aged, business man and woman having 5pm dinners and sleeping in seperate beds. This was a vampire and a werewolf, working terrible jobs through the night and waking up at 11am with hangovers. It was best friends watching movies and drinking beer and ordering pizza. But it was so much more, too.

It was a werewolf who, every 28 days, transformed in the hospital isolation room. Mitchell would drive him there, if George wasn't already at work and having to dodge out halfway through a shift. Mitchell would come back and sulk, sit on the couch with a concerned face and flick through the tv for about an hour until he realized George was going to be okay, because he was always okay, and busied himself with other things. Sometimes it was doing the dishes, or tidying the house, even if it were poorly done. Every now and then, Annie would watch him stare at the non existant reflection of himself and look away with a dismal expression. She wasn't quite sure what to make of him. Annie had also learnt very quickly that while George was away, Mitchell's room was _not_ an appropriate area to be popping up to check in on him. He kept himself especially occupied there.

It was a 116 year old vampire whose hands shook and who smoked too many cigarettes. Who wore three layers of clothing and barely went out without his gloves on. Who didn't much enjoy the sunlight in his eyes. Annie didn't understand how he worked at a hospital, mopping up blood, passing by patients with bags of it connected to their veins. George often commended him, when Mitchell was banging on about his hunger, how desperate and important it was for him to not give in, to remain human. George worried about him, Annie could see it in the way his eyes would follow Mitchell's from a room, or when they spoke quiet, hushed and serious about their conditions. She envied their relationship, if not the fact that they could at least see one another.

* * *

 

After a month had passed since the boys moved in, Annie decided she had to do something. She made more lists. Everything and anything she could think of that might help her resolve her business, to make her door appear. She thought about the time she called Linda Tepper a slag, and regretted it severely afterwards. She thought about that time she didn't hold the elevator for that man with the briefcase stuffed full of papers. The time her pet cat went missing when she was 11 years old, the time she forgot to water her flowerbed, the time she accidently kissed Martin Groven and ran away screaming. She studied the page before wrinkling her nose and scrunching the piece of paper, throwing it aside. She moved from the couch in her room, ever thankful that neither Mitchell or George were too concerned with changing the place to something else, and bounced down the stairs to the living room.

Mitchell had his feet up on the couch watching re-runs of some 80's sitcom, George in her armchair to the side flicking through the paper. She cleared her throat. Neither of them batted an eyelash.

"Right," she said cheerfully, smiling and putting her hands on her hips. "If I'm stuck here, I'm not going to go unseen forever. You two  _are_ going to see me, even if it means I have to tear this house down."

Neither of them shifted.

Annie frowned and walked into the kitchen, contemplating her surroundings. She noticed a mug on the edge of the dining table and reached her fingertips out to touch it.

"Oops," she smiled to herself as she tipped it off the table, sending it to the floor with a loud crashing noise.

George looked away from his paper towards the kitchen. "Did you hear that?"

"Of course I heard it," Mitchell replied nonchalantly. "I'm not deaf."

George scowled. "Probably just another mug you've left too close to the edge of a bench top."

Mitchell made an offended noise. "I never!"

"You do, always leaving bloody plates around. I almost split myself in half walking into a chopping board you'd left on the kitchen counter one night."

"You're being a tad dramatic, George."

Annie cleared her throat from the kitchen as the two bickered, seemingly having forgotten all about the broken mug in the first place.

Mitchell sighed and removed himself from the couch, slowly, as if it were a great inconvenience for him. "I'll clean it up."

Annie smiled to herself and bounced around excitedly. This was the beginning.

 

 


	2. Mirror Mirror

Annie couldn't wrap her head around Mitchell.

Often, he was unpredictable, wild. He'd come home in the early hours of the morning, from work or wherever else, and sit on the edge of his bed without a word. He'd ball his hands up into fists beside his thighs and shake, face scrunched up and hair in his face. As if he were screaming, without making the sound, without actually letting it out. He was always angry for a few days here and there, to the point where he became almost violent. He'd throw things around his room and rock back and forth at the edge of his bed. Sometimes he would be silent, almost crying, shoulders heaving with the invisible weight of being a non-feeding vampire. He was desperately trying to keep it together, to resist that primal urge inside himself to feed, to kill. To seduce his prey and vanish by morning with a trail of dead bodies behind. He was a predator in every sense of the word. Annie thought it frightened him, the rage he held just beneath the surface; the anger, the lust, the pain. Instead, it excited him. His eyes would go dark and his fangs would come out, and Annie knew she wasn't meant to be there, althought she didn't always go. 

Most of the time, he was the same old stubborn Mitchell. Wearing the same old clothes, the same green gloves. Driving the same car and working the same job. He'd come home and bicker with George, make dinner, drink beer. They'd watch tv and Mitchell would complain about something, and George was always there to pick up the pieces, or at least listen. He would laugh at George's panicked concerns about the state of the house, the plumbing, that damn unreliable tap. They would go down to the pub together, something Annie didn't participate in, and come back smelling like beer and stumlbing about the place before curling up on whatever suitable surface they could find and sleep it off.

Annie was more comfortable with George. He was more dependable, reliable.

He was exactly the same George for every 27 days out of 28. He was the same loveable, humble, shy and awkward George. He got angry around that time of the month, but it was only a day or so before, and he was always good at keeping himself together. He would snap at Mitchell or get angry with inanimate objects, but he was never violent, never scary. And then he would go away, and go through his phase, and come back the following morning. The same old George. Caring, thoughtful, kind George. She wonders how he ever became friends with someone like Mitchell.

* * *

One slow afternoon, on the odd occassion Mitchell and George had time off together, Annie decided to initiate phase two of her plan.

She sat on the floor of the living room as the boys watched tv, feet crossed and eyes closed. She hummed to herself, focusing all of her concentration on the task at hand. She breathed slowly, inhaling and exhaling deep breaths, channeling the power inside of herself that she knew was there. She'd had it before, she would have it again. She sat like that, silent, focused, for as long as it took, until the tv turned off.

"Why'd you do that?" Mitchell grumbled, looking sidways at George.

"I didn't do anything," George replied, motioning to the remote on the table in front of them both. "Must be dodgey wiring."

He got up to check the cables and turned the tv back on manually before sitting back down and watching as if nothing had happened.

Annie huffed and crossed her arms, looking between them both. "Incredible," she murmured, relaxing herself and closing her eyes again.

Mitchell groaned as the tv turned off once more. He pushed himself from the chair and walked towards the kitchen. "Maybe it's a ghost," he teased over his shoulder at George.

Annie beamed and nodded, shouting, "Yes, it's me!"

"A ghost!" George laughed sarcastically, scowling at Mitchell. "You think if there was a ghost here we would have noticed by now."

Mitchell shrugged as he walked back with a can of coke. "That's the thing 'bout ghosts, George, they aren't meant to be seen."

Annie frowned and sighed disappointedly. Either these boys were slow to catch on, or she was going to have to try a lot harder than that.

* * *

That night, Mitchell awoke to a blood curling scream. He threw himself out of bed, heart racing as he ran down the hallway torwards the noise and swung the door open.

George stood in the middle of the bathroom, face pale, whole body quivering. He made to speak, but no noise came out, and he pointed to the mirror with a shaky finger.

Mitchell slowly walked around George to come face to face with the reflection of only his friend, along with writing in what appeared to be Mitchell's toothpaste.

 _I am a ghost, my name is Annie,_ the words read, finished with what looked like a small love heart in the smeared minty paste.

"You're havin' a laugh," Mitchell grinned, half asleep. He turned to George and chuckled, palms open by his side, waiting for a response. 

George shook his head. "No, I came in for a pee and turned around and - and this!"

Mitchell looked back to the mirror and smudged his finger through the words. "It used my toothpaste."

"I'm not an it," Annie gasped, standing behind them both, watching them. Neither of them heard, and Mitchell stared at his fingertip before turning to George. 

"It used your toothpaste!" George cried increduosly. "Something has written a message, with a little _love heart_ on our bathroom mirror, and you're worried about it using your toothpaste!?"

"I'm  _not_ an it," Annie shouted again, and the lightbulb overhead burst into shards of glass around them.

Both men screamed as they ran from the room. "What is happening!" George wailed as they ran towards Mitchell's room and slammed the door behind them.  
  
Mitchell leant against it and steadied his breathing. "It's obvious isn't it - someone's trying to mess with us. Who've you pissed off lately?"

"Me?! If anyone's pissed anyone off, it'd be you!" George exclaimed, visibly shaken. 

Mitchell rubbed the toothpaste fingertip along his shirt and rubbed the hand across his mouth. "It's a ghost then. It has to be. It wasn't me. It wasn't you, so you say-"

"It wasn't me!"

"So what else could it be?"

They stared at each other for a long while, and Annie rolled her eyes on the opposite side of the room. 

"H-hello?" George asked, moving his hands back and forth through the air in front of him.

"What're you doing?" Mitchell scowled, slapping George's hands away. "You look completely ridiculous."

"I'm trying to find it!"

"I'm not an it!" Annie screamed with frustration, and all of a sudden both men were looking right at her. George screamed and backed away while Mitchell stood open mouthed and plastered to the door. Annie eyed them both catiously before looking down at herself. "Oh my god," she gasped, head snapping back up to look over them both. "Can you see me?"

George nodded furiously. 

"Oh my god. Oh my god," Annie whispered, hands covering her mouth. "You can really see me?"

"Yes, we can really see you," Mitchell said slowly, looking to George and back at Annie. "You drew a love heart on our mirror in  _my_ toothpaste."

George gaped at Mitchell. "Are you serious right now? Are you actually worried about your toothpaste right now?"

Mitchell shushed him and looked to Annie for a reply.

"I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner - I wanted you to know I was here, I've been trying to get through to you for weeks," Annie explained, her dark hair bouncing around her shoulders as she moved with excitement. "I wanted you to know I was friendly so I drew a little heart, you know, I didn't want you to think I was some kind of murderer inside the house, or a poltergeist, or any of those things!"

She looked between them both with a beaming smile, hands clasped in front of her, shaking with nervous exicement. 

* * *

 

"So how long have you been.. watching us?" George asked, hands still slightly shaky as he held his mug of tea with a firm grasp.

"Since you moved in. I mean, I've been here longer, much longer and I can't really go anywhere else. I haven't been watching you sleep, or shower or.. or anything like that!" Annie blurted as they both stared at her with cautious expressions. 

"You haven't been watching us shower, have you?" George asked.

"No, I mean, not on purpose. Sometimes I'll pop in to check on either of you and you'll be in there, but I never stay, I mean, I haven't seen anything. Much. Not much at all," Annie trailed away, looking nervously between them both. 

"So, why couldn't we see you when we moved in?"

"I don't know. Lots of people used to be able to see me, normal people, you know, not werewolves or vampires-"

George spat some of his tea back into his mug.

"Yes I know about you both. Anyway, ever since I found out my fiance killed me, I haven't been seen by anyone since."

"Your fiance  _killed_ you?" George asked baffled, putting down his mug.

"Yeah, pushed me right down the stairs. I mean, it's okay, you don't have to feel sorry for me or anything. I've been dead for a while now, I've come to terms with it."

"So why haven't you moved on?" Mitchell asked with a soft voice. It took her by surprise.

"Well, that's what I've been trying to figure out," she replied, taking the empty mugs and plates to the kitchen. "I've thought of just about everything I can and I still haven't seen my door."

"Door?"

"Yes, there's a door, and when it's your time you just - pass on through it," she answered, zipping her hand along in front of her.

"So what have you seen?" Mitchell asked, rubbing his thumb over his cheek.

Annie wasn't sure what exactly he was referring to, so she remained vauge. "Oh, you know. You two havin' a laugh, going to work. You don't seem to do much else, do you?" she laughed.

Mitchell smiled and bowed his head, looking at the ground. "Nothing worth noting, anyway," he answered with a grim smile, looking away from the two of them.

 

 


End file.
